


Tempo rubato (prima volta con accompagnamento)

by cloudcraft



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship, Roommates, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 12:31:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4787360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudcraft/pseuds/cloudcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The month before their first year at university, Hanayo asks Maki if she'd like to be roommates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempo rubato (prima volta con accompagnamento)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seirensen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seirensen/gifts).



> This is a (late) birthday present for [seirensen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/seirensen)! I know you don't like birthdays, Squish, but you DO like the Makipana. :3 So I hope you enjoy. <3  
> Also: I did my best research, but I am not a composer, economist, or scientist. Please let me know if I've committed any factual inaccuracies. orz

The March before they entered college was an eventful one. Rin insisted on seeing Maki and Hanayo as much as she could before she left Tokyo on tour. This meant as much as they'd put up with her, so they hung out nearly every other day. Maki saw a lot of Hanayo during that month. Most of it blurred together in a haze of unfocused contentedness. After graduation, she finally had respite from rushed performance preparations and studying for exams. In the mornings she woke up, read a little in bed, and checked her phone for messages from her friends. Eventually she gave up feigning exasperation when Rin only gave them thirty minutes to get ready.

She couldn't remember where they were when Hanayo asked if Maki wanted to live together, but she remembered what Hanayo looked like.

She wore a four-leaf-clover hair pin on her left side and a sheer pink cardigan over a white camisole. She blushed a little as she explained,

"My parents want me to split housing costs to save money and I know you were planning on having your own place, but—"

"It's fine," Maki said. Too quickly? She wasn't sure. "I can be your roommate." 

"Really?" Relief and delight radiated from Hanayo's face. "It's not too much trouble? I know our universities are a little far apart…"

"We'll find a place somewhere in the middle." Maki tried her best to sound nonchalant even as her mind began racing. Being Hanayo's roommate meant that they would come home to the same apartment, eat together, study together, even sleep under the same—

Maki stopped herself here. Hanayo had taken her hand.

"Hanayo...?"

"I'm really excited, Maki-chan." Hanayo beamed. "Thank you." 

 

Maki chose the university that best suited her choice of double major, unaware that the two departments were on completely different ends of the campus. Her first class of the week, Introduction to Microeconomics, lay on the far north end of campus. She made the trek knowing that she would have to cross back over to the south end all over again in the afternoon. 

On the way there, she passed the music school. She could hear the sounds of a wind ensemble warming up inside. A faint smile appeared on her face and quickly melted away again when she saw a few music students clustered near the front entrance of the building. One of them gasped and pointed upon making eye contact. Maki regretted it immediately. There was no way to avoid conversation now.

"Nishikino-san," one of them greeted. She was cheerful enough, for somebody who couldn't learn to take a hint. 

"Good morning," Maki said, inclining her head politely. "I'm sorry, but I have to be on my way, I have class..."  
"Oh, we understand, that's perfectly fine," the student said, waving it off. "But the composition class is having a study circle at 4:00 today, would you be interested in joining us?" 

"I'm not part of the music school," Maki said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "And I really don't have the time, I'm afraid." Before the student could get another word in edgewise, Maki hurried past them with a tight-lipped smile. She was never particularly good at dealing with fans when she didn't have the other girls to back her up. 

 

"Somebody save me~~" Hanayo groaned, her face smushed into the couch pillows. 

"It's only the first week, how can you be falling apart already?" Maki sighed. The couch was big enough for three, so Hanayo could flop on her stomach with her feet hanging off the side and there was still enough room for Maki to sit and place a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

The apartment itself was modest—certainly smaller than the one that Maki's parents had been planning on renting on her behalf. It had a single combined living room and kitchenette, with the foyer, Hanayo's room, and Maki's room just down a short hallway. The two of them contributed almost-equal amounts of furniture to the living room. Maki brought lamps, side tables, and the couch. Hanayo contributed everything fluffy that went on the couch (pillows, stuffed animals), an equally fluffy rug, her absurdly large television, and its matching collection of idol DVDs. 

The kitchen was also very obviously under Hanayo's influence. She brought her collection of animal-themed cooking utensils, two bags of high quality rice, and every flavor of furikake under the sun. Maki brought a single nabe pot and left the rest to Hanayo's discretion. If there was one place she could trust Hanayo to get serious, it was the kitchen. 

Clearly not the couch. 

"My Intro to Journalism professor said that we have a current events test on Friday," Hanayo sniffed. "She's going to quiz us on everything that happens in the news between now and then. _Everything_ , Maki-chan!"

Maki made a vaguely sympathetic noise and rubbed Hanayo's shoulder. Hanayo smelled really nice. Did she put on extra deodorant after coming back from class? Or did she just smell that good all day? 

"If it were all idol news, it'd be no problem..." Hanayo sighed, rolling onto her back. The motion pushed the pillow up onto Maki's thigh, which she lay her head on regardless. Her hair fanned out on the pillow's puffy surface. 

"You just have to get through these general classes so you can start projects that interest you," Maki said, resisting the urge to reach over and play with Hanayo's hair. "Besides, you always did well memorizing things for tests in high school. This is the same thing, just with newspapers instead of textbooks." 

"I have to go buy some newspapers, huh.." 

"Well, at least not all of them." Maki reached towards her feet where her bag sat on the floor. When she sat up again, she bopped Hanayo on the forehead with a folded copy of Monday's newspaper.

"Thank you," Hanayo burbled, making Maki laugh and blush at the same time. 

 

Her microeconomics professor was a stern, petite woman nearing her retirement age, who nonetheless moved the lectures along at lightning speed. She explained that if students couldn't keep up with an old woman like her, they would have a hell of a time trying to stay on top of things in the real world. Maki found this fair. She scribbled down notes at top speed while her dazed classmates tried their best to understand the terminology coming out of their professor's mouth.

"For a while now we've been talking about opportunity cost, the loss of alternatives when one choice is made," the professor explained. "One way to think about this is the different avenues of gain depending on how your time is spent."

Maki's pen continued to move. It was difficult not to think of her former idol groupmates. Ultimately, all her decisions with μ's had been a matter of opportunity cost. Spending time composing and practicing with them, she had lost time that would have been spent studying or pursuing her own musical interests. 

But as a result of being part of μ's, she was now living with Hanayo. 

"Today I'd like to talk about the time value of money itself," her professor went on. "You may want to think that one thousand yen will always be one thousand yen, but that is simply not the case. One thousand yen is simply its present value. Uninvested, it will actually decrease in value over time. If we apply a five percent interest rate..." 

The rules of economics made sense. It was as if somebody had taken all the common-sense knowledge one could gain in life and put them down on paper. The logic appealed to her. Even things like the time value of money settled neatly into her mental structure of the world. Money that wasn't put to some purpose was just being wasted. Skills that weren't put into regular use would degenerate over time. Sensible.

 

Within the first few days of cohabitation, Hanayo learned all the holes in Maki's domestic skill set. They were many, the most obvious of which was cooking. Maki could learn to cook at her own pace, Hanayo said. She took it upon herself to make sure that her friend didn't starve in the meantime. 

Every morning, Hanayo woke up early to make a proper breakfast and pack onigiri for lunch. At first Maki joked that she would get sick of onigiri, but she never did. Hanayo prepared a different set of fillings for each day of the week and Maki found herself looking forward to salmon Wednesdays and konbu Fridays. It got to the point that she wouldn't eat store-bought onigiri any more. 

To her credit, Maki put honest effort into improving her cooking skills. Her assigned task, dinner, became a daily proving ground. The first dish she tried was curry rice. 

"It's good!" Hanayo chirped. 

"It came from a box," Maki said. "And you made the rice." 

"Mm... You chose a good brand to match the rice!" 

The next attempt was bolognese spaghetti. 

"It's not bad," Hanayo said, smiling as she twirled the noodles around her fork. She held her fork like a calligraphy brush when she did that. "It could use a little more salt." 

"Ah." 

Hanayo looked up at Maki's face and stifled a giggle. 

"Maki-chan, did you forget about seasoning completely?"

"There's a lot to remember at once," Maki grumbled.

The following attempt was fried rice. Maki, remembering New York, kept in mind that several consecutive non-rice meals would lead to a harmonic imbalance in Hanayo's system. She remembered to use salt this time. 

"Maybe a little too much salt," Hanayo said. She hadn't been able to hide the face she made after the first spoonful. "But the rice is good! You didn't burn it!" 

Cooking was decidedly a work in progress. When Hanayo caught Maki looking dejected and pushing rice around her plate, she reached over and placed a hand on Maki's shoulder. 

"Don't worry, Maki-chan. I know you haven't cooked much before. That's why it makes me so, so happy that you're trying hard and cooking for both of us. I'll make tomorrow's lunch onigiri extra delicious to show my appreciation, okay?" 

It was true. Somehow, she made them more delicious.

 

After Microeconomics was finished, Maki had to hurry several buildings across campus to the science school for Fundamentals of Biology. Her Fundamentals professor wasn't as exacting as her economics professor, but she was particular about punctuality. Maki slipped into the classroom and settled down in a seat towards the back of the room with a few minutes to spare. In the moment she had to breathe, she checked her phone and found a message from Hanayo. 

[ My afternoon class was canceled so I'll be home early! ^^ Plenty of time to read all the newspapers I've collected. TwT Enjoy the rest of your day~ ♪ ♥ ♪ ]

Maki smiled. It was amazing how quickly they had both gotten used to referring to the new apartment as home. Growing up, her parents had often been at work when she returned home for the day, even after μ's rehearsal and hanging out downtown. She never resented them for it, but there was also little point in saying aloud, "I'm home." 

The new apartment was different. If Hanayo was home, she would call out a "welcome home!" from wherever she was in the apartment. (The bathroom was the one exception, which Maki appreciated.) Even when Hanayo wasn't back yet, the apartment still resonated with her presence. Maki found herself telling the empty apartment that she was home, as if the lingering afterimage of Hanayo could hear it.

She typed out a reply message. 

[ Thanks for letting me know. I'll see you at home. ♥ ]

Staring at her screen, Maki turned red and hit the backspace key twice. The heart disappeared. Maki bit her lip, looking over the message again. Did it read too coldly without an emoji? Nico always got on her case for that. But the heart was too much. Maki settled on a :) and sent the message on its way. 

The ambient chatter of the room died down. Glancing up, Maki saw that the professor had moved to her podium. She slipped her phone into her bag and took up her pen. 

"Today, I'd like to talk about birds," the professor began. "You're likely all familiar with migratory patterns, but have you ever stopped to consider the biological processes beneath the timing of their migration? Humans match events to dates, but birds don't have calendars or watches. Nature has developed very different mechanisms to keep track of time across various scales. For clarity's sake, let's continue with our example of the bird.."

 

Maki furnished her room in the new apartment to be particularly spartan: bed, desk, dresser, mirror. Only a couple stuffed animals and photos were conceded space around her nightstand. She knew going into a double degree program that she would need as few distractions as possible, which included the piano or anything that would tempt her from her studies. It wasn't as if the grand piano from home would have fit in the new apartment anyway. 

The first week of school, as Hanayo struggled to throw herself into the world of print journalism, Maki found herself inundated with reading for her business courses and preparatory work for the following week's biology lab. Plus, she had a host of other small assignments for her general education courses outside of her majors. After dinner, she sat down in front of her desk and put herself to work, only stopping occasionally to hydrate herself and check her posture. 

Around nine o'clock, Hanayo knocked ever-so-quietly on her door frame. 

"Maki-chan, can I come in?" 

“Ah, sure.” Maki wondered why she was fidgeting. Hanayo had been in her room at her parent's house plenty of times, she reminded herself. This was hardly any different.

Hanayo poked her head in where the door lay ajar. Maki realized that since the sun had gone down, the only light left in the room was the lamp clamped to her desk. She must have looked like a vampire. Hanayo, on the other hand, was fresh and rosy from the bath. Her hair was still pulled back by a terrycloth headband. Even with a hesitant expression, Hanayo's face looked much more mature with her bangs out of her face. 

"I'm sorry, I know you're busy and we just moved in and you're probably still getting settled—" Hanayo cut herself off, seeing the patient smile that Maki wore when she was waiting for Hanayo to get to the point of what she wanted to say. "Anyways, I found this posted on campus today."

She held out her phone, on which was a photo of a flyer on a bulletin board. It hardly stood out among the other colorful advertisements, but it detailed a jazz chamber recital on Saturday evening. 

"It's free and I know you love jazz, so I thought maybe we could go together. I could show you my campus if you're interested..." 

Maki bit the inside of her cheek. The teacher's assistant for her biology class had scheduled a study group for Saturday evening that Maki had been planning on attending. But more importantly, Hanayo's school was hardly well known for music. Even if she had the time, it wasn't the sort of performance that she would have gone out of her way to attend. 

"I'm sorry, Hanayo, but Saturday I—" 

"It's okay!" Hanayo said, waving her hands rapidly. "You're busy! I understand. Having two majors is tough, I just thought you might want some music to help you relax. Good luck with the rest of your homework!" 

Before Maki could get another word in edgewise, Hanayo had already scooted back into the hallway, sliding the door shut after her. Maki sat with one hand raised and her mouth open, but made no sound. She lowered her hand to her lap and sat still for a few moments, lips pursed, before turning back to her lamp lit desk. 

 

As Maki packed up her things after class, she realized that she had taken all of her biology notes in her business class notebook. She flipped through the pages with a sigh. The time value of money, the biological mechanisms for measuring time... Like a repeating motif in a symphony, she was beginning to pick up on themes in her life. 

One of the pages had business notes on one side and biology on the other, so she would have a few minutes to re-copy the contents from one notebook to another. She glanced at her watch and put the rest of her belongings away. 

On her way back across the breadth of the campus, she passed by the music building again. There were no students clustered around the entrance. She allowed her pace to naturally slow down until she stopped, peering in through the glass doors. As if drawn by a magnetic force beyond her ability to resist, her feet carried her over the threshold. 

The hallways were surprisingly quiet. The previous rehearsal period had just ended and the next one had yet to begin, so noise was limited to the muffled sounds from practice rooms. Maki glanced out of the corner of her eye at the performance students through the windows in the doors as she wandered down the hallway. She didn't regret her decision to keep music as a hobby. As strange as it was to say after her stint as a school idol, the world of professional music had too much pageantry. 

She paused. The practice room at the end of the hallway was open. Inside lay a sleek grand piano, surely tuned and well used.

No longer under any illusions about what brought her here, Maki stepped inside the practice room and shut the door. The bench squeaked under her weight, but the height adjustment was just right. She lay her fingers on the keys and played the first thing that came to mind. 

It was a simple progression that she had been working on before she moved out of her parent's home. In the later years of composing for Otonokizaka's Idol Research Club, she became increasingly experimental in blending external influences with their traditional pop sound. The underclassman who she mentored as the resident composer was enthusiastic to continue this tradition, much to Maki's delight. They manipulated time signatures and beats with gusto, well aware that most of their groupmates would fail to appreciate the attention to detail. 

In contrast, this song was straightforward. It was a lilting, catchy R&B tune that she had been unable to keep out of her head. Before long, she found herself weaving strains of melody over the base chord progression. The tone was rich and warm, like waking up in the morning to soft light filtering through her curtains, the smell of breakfast wafting through her door. The soft sound of Hanayo humming to herself over the morning radio. A stable, reassuring time signature, something to come home to. 

She reached the point that would become the song's bridge, signaling the imminent key change and a return to a modulated chorus. Her hands rose from the keys and the penultimate chord resonated in the confined space of the practice room. Time stood still for a few moments of ringing clarity. 

Maki knew what she needed to do. 

 

Normally she would spend the afternoon at her campus library, working through the bulk of her scheduled work for the day. Instead, she hopped on the train and made her way directly back to the apartment. She nearly bypassed the supermarket, but stopped herself at the last minute and collected groceries for dinner. Doria, she decided. Tonight she was going to try to make three cheese doria. 

Hanayo's shoes were set neatly in the entrance hall when she arrived. 

"I'm home," Maki called. 

"Welcome home!" Hanayo chirped from the living room. When Maki bent down to remove her shoes, she could see Hanayo on the couch, setting aside her laptop so she could rise to greet Maki. 

"Hanayo, I wanted to ask you something," she said, heading down the short hallway toward the living room. 

"Ah, I had something I wanted to show you too," Hanayo said. The moment Maki entered the living room, she realized what it was. Against the wall, illuminated perfectly by the late afternoon light from the balcony doors, stood a Yamaha keyboard and piano seat. Hanayo waited by the couch, her lips pinched tight to keep her exclamations from bursting out. 

"Hanayo, did you..?" 

"It's my cousin's! They don't use it any more and you said that your piano was too big for this apartment, so I just! Had it sent over." Hanayo laced and unlaced her fingers, played with the hems of her blouse. "I thought that since your schedule is so tight, you could have it here whenever you've got a free moment." 

Hanayo looked down, licked her lips, shifted her knees, looked up again. 

"It's not as good as a grand. And I probably should have asked permission first. Do you like it?" 

Maki thought her heart would burst. 

"Hanayo, I love it," she said. "Thank you. I'll definitely use it." 

Hanayo let go of the breath she'd held in. She broke into a smile. 

"I'm glad." 

Maki's breath caught in her throat and she remembered what she had rushed home to do in the first place. 

"Do you remember that jazz concert you mentioned the other night?" she asked. Hanayo blinked, taking a moment to recall. 

"Ah, that? Yeah, why?" 

"Let's go," Maki said, perhaps with more force than necessary. "And let's get dinner beforehand. We never properly celebrated moving in, so... I'll make time that evening. We can get dinner, you can show me your campus, and then let's go to the concert together." 

Why was her heart beating so fast? She was only asking Hanayo to hang out on a Sunday, the way they'd done all the time in high school, but something was different. Did the difference of a few months change so much? 

It was impossible to tell if Hanayo felt the same. Was it only Maki that had noticed? That even though they had only just moved in, it felt like they had been living together for years. That even though they only met three years ago, Maki felt closer to her than to any of her childhood friends. The seconds between the words leaving Maki's mouth and Hanayo's response seemed to dilate, stretching out so that Maki could see every flutter of Hanayo's eyelashes before she spoke. 

"Yeah, that sounds really good. But," Hanayo paused. Maki's heart sank for a moment, but Hanayo just giggled. "You're right, I guess we never celebrated. I didn't notice because every night you make dinner feels like a little party to me." 

"Ah." Maki managed a smile despite her impulse to scoff away the compliment. "Well, think about where you'd like to go. Anything is fine with me." 

"I have some ideas!" Hanayo perked up. "I've been reading newspapers nonstop, so I found lots of restaurants from the review section that look interesting." 

"Alright, let me know later." Maki's glance drifted over to the keyboard. It looked like Hanayo had already set up the foot pedal and a pair of speakers. "Hey, I've been working on a new song lately. Do you want to hear it?" 

Like a startled pigeon, Hanayo flew over to the couch and settled down, hands on her knees and eyes wide. She gave a stiff nod to indicate that she was ready. Maki stifled a laugh. That was all the encouragement she needed. 

Maki put her bag down, sat at the bench, and flexed her fingers on the keys. She hadn't figured out a decisive ending to the piece, but she had a feeling that she'd be able to get it right today. The time felt right.


End file.
